The Captain's Heart CH 79

Jeremy looked over the design of the circuit he’d made as he walked. He still couldn’t see why it wouldn’t work once printed, and he hoped

Jeremy looked over the design of the circuit he’d made as he walked. He still couldn’t see why it wouldn’t work once printed, and he hoped Builder Atarikna Drogdromar could shed light on where his mistake was.

The growling stopped him by the sheer incongruity of hearing an animal on the ship. Unlike humans, Kelsirians didn’t seem to have pets. He looked around for it, but it was only him and Kelsirians in the hall. Hunters. Who were watching one of theirs, who was the one growling like an animal, looking at Jeremy.

Despite being dressed in the practical vest and pants many of the hunters preferred—lots of pockets and places to hook tools, or weapons, there was a roughness to this one that went beyond sounding like an animal.

“What are you?” she asked.

“Hi.” He hesitated. This was one of the prisoners Gralgiran had told him about. “I’m Jeremy. I’m a human. The Federation calls my species Earther.” He’d mentioned they lived among the hunters, but Jeremy hadn’t expected to come across one of them. Not even a dozen of them spread over the three decks that were part of the hunter area; what were the odds he’d run into one of them?

“Tell me—” Her snarling approach was cut off by one of the hunter interposing himself.

“Remember yourself, Rrojinfra fremalr Jamorink. Remember where you are.”

She glared at him, and he held her gaze.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Worker seven-nine-twenty—” she frowned, looked around.

“That is who you were. We are now longer incarcerated.”

She snorted.

“Who are you?”

“Rrojinfra,” she said, as if she had to pull the information from far away. “Daughter of Frilen Formkrelir sel Syntar.”

“Good. Where are you?”

She looked around. Everyone in the hall had stopped, but Jeremy couldn’t tell if they were ready to intervene or not. As far as he could tell. The hunters were simply curious about the exchange.

“A ship.”

“Ally or enemy?”

She seemed to have trouble with that question, and Jeremy realized that whatever he’d thought the prison was, when his Heart had explained they’d take on released criminals and bring them to Kelser, he had been wrong.

She seemed to have forgotten what it meant to be in society.

“A…ally?”

“Good. How do you behave with an ally?”

“You….” She was searching again. “Ask, don’t take.”

He stepped out of her way.

“Tell me what you are.” She frowned. “Please?”

It was clear she hadn’t understood him. He started typing his answer.

“I understand Earther,” the hunter said. “I can translate.”

“Thank you. I’m…—” he took a breath and tried for the best Kelsirian he could here. “—technician Jeremy Bradshaw.” Technician wasn’t too rough on his throat, and his name was in English. Then he had to stay with English. “I’m human. The Federation calls my Species Earthers.” Another word that didn’t destroy his throat. “I’m the captain’s Heart.”

The hunter kept what Jeremy said nearly identical, but used Alpha instead of captain.

The woman stepped back. “Sorry, I didn’t know. I didn’t mean to—”

“Calm, Rrojinfra fremalr Jamorink,” the hunter said. “Breathe and calm. You are among allies, remember? Allies don’t punish mistakes. Allies understand that errors happen. We explain ourselves.”

The fear didn’t entirely leave her eyes, but her ears hesitatingly straightened.

“I’m sorry,” she said, sounding like she’d run. “I didn’t mean to offend you. To offend the Heart of the Alpha who is bringing me home.”

“It’s okay,” he replied. “I don’t expect you, or anyone, to treat me differently because of him.”

The hunter’s ears folded partially in that way Jeremy had learned matched a roll of the eyes. What he said was, “The Alpha’s heart understands you couldn’t know who he is. He isn’t offended.”

Jeremy thought about calling the man out on completely changing what he’d said, but figured an argument before her wouldn’t help anything, since his words were putting her at ease.

“If she has questions, I’m willing to answer them.”

“Are you sure?” the hunter asked in English. “She’s lost most of whatever tact she might have had before.”

“I’m here, and I don’t work until second shift, so I have time.”

The hunter let her know, and movement restarted in the hall.

She did have questions, and while Jeremy couldn’t answer them all—he wasn’t touching those about how his god had let him have a Kelsirian Heart and the other relating to them, he thought it went well. Until she asked how they could have sex since they were different species. When he faltered, she suggested he show her, and Jeremy faltered even more. The hunter didn’t help. He mentioned the leisure alley a couple of intersection back.

He found that whatever ease he’d gained walking around the reservoir naked didn’t apply here. As gently as he could, he explain this wasn’t happening. He was with Gralgiran and suggested she look up anatomy books to learn about the similarities between their species.

Then he excused himself and continued on his way.

As soon as the door closed behind him in Atarikna Drogdromar’s workshop, he leaned back against it.

She stopped welding and looked in his direction. “Technician Jeremy Bradshaw. This is a surprise. Why do you look like you’ve escaped hunters?”

He chuckled. “I’ve escaped way too personal questions. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to how at ease Kelsirians are talking about sex and the stuff around it.”

“Ah,” she said. “People will be curious about what they don’t know.” She went back to welding, sending sparks up.

He pushed away and approached. He should have put on the contact lenses she’d made him, but he thought of them as a swimming aid, instead of a ‘whenever light might be intense’ one.

He kept an arm before his eyes. “What are you working on?”

“Playing. Seeing what kind of alloys have the best tensile resistance. You never know what you’ll end up working with on the front. Nothing worse than putting together a shelter from what you find around you only for that to fall around your ears because the welds didn’t take to the material.” She shut the welder down. “Did you come here only seeking refuge?”

“I’ve got a problem with the circuit I designed. It’s not working. I need your professional opinion on what my mistake is.”

“Send it and I’ll looking over.”

    *

Jeremy opened the door to Gralgiran’s office. “Gral, are you busy?”

With a wave of the hand, he moved the files floating over his desk to the side. “Not if you need something.”

He sat on the chair facing his Heart. “I met one of the released criminals. It went fine,” he hurried to add. “Actually. How come that seems to surprise you? Didn’t the hunter report it to you?”

Gralgiran closed his muzzle. “If you say it went fine, I doubt they had a reason to report it.”

He took a breath. “Tell me about that incarceration center. She barely seemed civilized.”

His heart nodded. “They aren’t good places.” Then he told him about the terraforming. How prisoners were sent there to work off their sentences. How they were basically dropped into a barely livable environment and forced to fend for themselves. The better centers at least maintained the living domes, so they had a safe place to return to. This one hadn’t been one of the better center.

He hoped that living among his hunters, they could relearn what it meant to be a person, but he didn’t hold out hope. The people sent to the incarceration centers weren’t good people to start with, and their time there didn’t do much to improve them.

Jeremy hugged his Heart.

    *

“So you…what?” Atarikna asked, reaching for the handle over her head. “Take this and pull?” When it didn’t move, she used her other hand, and pulled herself up, instead of it down.

“When I get the circuits to talk to each other and I can adjust the gravitics, it’ll provide resistance, which forces me to put effort into it and results in toning my muscles. Depending on the exercise used, you can build up strength or endurance.”

She snorted. “The way I hear it, Jeremy, you don’t need more endurance.”

He shrugged. “The exercise is also to maintain a good physical health. Never cared to rely on medicine for that.”

“That’s what a good fight is for. Or a good fuck.”

He hung his head, hoping he wasn’t in for another recounting of what she liked to do with her partners.

She chuckled, dropping to the floor. “I don’t understand your reluctance to hear about what others get up to in bed.”

“I’m going to call it a human thing and leave it at that. Sex is simply not something we talk openly about.” He set the circuit back in place, powered the machine and…. “Yes!” blue light.

He tapped the control screen, and the settings appeared. He adjusted the mass at the other end of the pulley. “Try it now.”

She reached up. And with effort, pulled it down. More effort than he expected based on the number he read. “It needs fine tuning, but at least it’s working.” He passed his bracelet before the reader and the screen reset. He entered varying weights and numbers of repetitions. “Swipe yours.”

She did, and the screen reset. He swiped his, and the previous entries returned.

“And it reads our bracelets, so even if I can’t get the numbers to match the actual mass they should be producing, I can go by feel and know I’m working with the same weights.”

She rested her muzzle on his shoulder as she read the screen. “You’re most likely dealing with a ratio discrepancy between the controller and sensing circuits. Best way to adjust that is to use a calibrating array. I can talk my mate into letting us use the one they have in Mechanical.”

“And what is that going to cost me?”

“A meal, me and her, you and your Heart. Trabarin’s Grill.”

“I can do that. When do you think she’ll be able to get us access?”

“Oh, I can convince her to let us use it as soon as I’m done convincing her.”

He preemptively hung his head.

“You want to watch?”

    *

“I’m sorry,” Gralgiran said, “you offered for him to watch?” Instead of offended, his Heart was amused.

“I said no.”

Gralgiran patted his hand. “I understand.”

Jeremy rolled his eyes. “No, you don’t.” He chuckled. “My discomfort amuses you. None of you can wrap your minds around how a species can be so different from you. Trust me, I’m the same with how willing you are to talk about sex. Or how comfortable you are being naked.”

“Not species,” Atarikna’s mate said. “I fully understand how species can have been made to be different. You’ll never get a Saladin to talk about sex, or be willing to hear about anything they’ll find titillating, because once they get going, they have to finish. Taournians are a bit like you on exposing themselves. What I have trouble with is that you have a Kelsirian Heart. That means our gods were involved. Why not make you more like us, so that you wouldn’t have this difficulty?”

“Camouflage,” Atarikna said.

Gralgiran closed his muzzle, then. “I hadn’t thought about that. You had to live among Earthers, so your behavior couldn’t be so different they’d notice.”

“I’m attracted to men,” Jeremy pointed out. “You don’t get that much more different among humans. And I paid for it.”

“But you were discovered because of youthful ignorance,” Gralgiran said. “If you’d grown up without being noticed. You would have quickly learned to not show signs you were.”

“I’m not the only one who was caught and ‘treated.’ I doubt they were all kids like me.”

“They didn’t have me as a Heart,” Gralgiran said, and Jeremy was amused at how he acted like that was answer enough.

“And your faith in gods is another point I had trouble understanding. Where’s your evidence?”

The three of them looked at him, stunned.

Gralgiran leaned close and rubbed his muzzled against his cheek. “It’s before us, Jer. Right before us.”

Outline section 

no outline

Addition 

Work on the weight machine advances, have Atarikna there. Address how the new prisoners affect the mood on the ship? Remember there are released criminals among the hunters now

Honestly, this is pretty much entirely ‘filler’ I wanted to address Jeremy’s weight machine, and the building friendship with Atarikna, and touch on the released prisoners on the ship. Then, I just kept writing and tried to keep something about what was happening relevant.